254 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. $2 



BANCROFTIA PERSEPHASSA, new species 



Female. — Proboscis black-scaled, a white ring at the middle. 

 Thorax clothed with narrow golden scales, with a subdorsal narrow 

 bare line on either side, the sides of the disk dark except for a patch 

 of golden scales over the root of the wing. Abdomen subcylin- 

 drical, truncate at tip, black-scaled above with yellowish white lateral 

 basal segmental spots, venter black, with narrow white basal bands. 

 Wings hyaline, the scales dusky black, the outstanding ones broad, 

 obliquely subtruncate at the tip. Legs black-scaled, the femora with 

 the apices yellowish white and a ring of this color at the apical third ; 

 tibiae similarly marked ; tarsi of the hind legs ringed with white at 

 both ends of the joints, the last joint black at the tip; front and mid 

 tarsi with the markings similar, but obsolete on the last three joints. 

 Length, 3.5 mm. 



One specimen, San Antonio de los Bafios, Cuba (J. H. Pazos). 



Type no. 121 18, U. S. N. M. 



CULEX LACTATOR Dyar and Knab 



Variety lactator Dyar and Knab 



Our Culcx lactator, described from larvse, proves to be very vari- 

 able as adult. We propose to restrict our name to that form of 

 lactator in which the legs are entirely black and the proboscis lacks 

 the white ring, being only white-marked beneath, leaving the name 

 hassardii Grabham for the normally fully marked form. 



Variety loquacuhis, nev/ variety 



In this form the pale markings are all reduced, the tarsal rings 

 smaller than in normal lactator and of a brownish shade ; the pro- 

 boscis instead of being ringed is white-marked on the under side. 



Type no. 12050, U. S. N. M. 



We have selected six specimens as types from the Panama Canal 

 Zone. 



Culex lactator is a common tropical mosquito, the adult variable, 

 but the larvae constant. We have been obliged to recognize named 

 varieties in this case, since the extremes are so different from the 

 normal form as to fall very differently in any synoptic table. These 

 forms would certainly be treated as distinct species by any student 

 studying the adults alone. 



